HostGator vs GreenGeeks – The Best Green Web Hosting

As the eco-consciousness has grown significantly nowadays, green web hosts have been preferred by many webmasters, among which HostGator and GreenGeeks are the most award-winning companies. Without doubt, both of the 2 companies are the reliable web hosting providers that offer quality green hosting at affordable prices, so many of our readers have no idea which one is the better choice. In this article, we have started a comprehensive comparison between HostGator and GreenGeeks, with a view to helping people make the right decision.

This comparison is mainly based on green hosting, price, features, hosting performance, and support service. Before presenting the detailed comparison result, we have inserted an overall rating chart according to verified customer feedbacks and our real hosting experiences with the 2 companies.

Clearly, both of the 2 web hosts have done good jobs in some certain fields. HostGator wins a little in terms of hosting speed and price; GreenGeeks does better in respect to green hosting.

Green Hosting Comparison – GreenGeeks Wins

Just as the name suggests, GreenGeeks has devoted in offering green web hosting since its inception into this industry. Here, we have listed some green methods adopted by this company in the following.

Purchase wind power credits to offset 3 times the amount of energy consumption

Reconfigure servers to make them run cooler and more efficient, thus use less electricity

Establish green data center with advanced cooling technology

Pay attention to carbon footprint in offices

In terms of HostGator, it offsets server emissions and energy consumption by investing in Wind Energy and purchasing certified Renewable Energy Credits.

Price Comparison – GreenGeeks Wins

Both HostGator and GreenGeeks have offered attractive coupon code, with which customers can purchase starting at a more budget-friendly price instead of the regular rate. However, the discounted price of HostGator is cheaper than that of GreenGeeks. However, the HostGator cheapest hatchling plan only allows to host 1 domain on 1 account. If you have a plan for multiple websites, the HostGator baby plan regularly starts at $8.95/mo which is much more expensive than GreenGeeks.

Reliability Comparison – Both Win

As the leading web hosts in the market, both HostGator and GreenGeeks understand the importance of reliability, thus guarantee a 99.9% uptime for any hosted website by leveraging the power of world-class data centers, quality Dell servers with high specifications, as well as fast and stable network.

HostGator

HostGator – The web servers used by HostGator are featured with 32 Core AMD Opteron Processors, 64GB of RAM and 4 RAID 1s. All the server components are of high quality.

In terms of data centers, HostGator has two top-tier options named as Ace Data Center and CrrusOne, all are equipped with HAVC, highly redundant systems, constant infrastructure monitoring, smoke and heat detection systems, fire suppression system, 24×7 CCTV monitoring and many more.

As for the testing result of HostGator uptime in the real world, this web host has achieved a 99.99% uptime.

As for the data centers, GreenGeeks has three options now that are all SAS 70 Type 1 certified, coming with Dual-city grid power feeds, FM 200 server-safe fire suppression system, automatic temperature and climate control, and 24/7 network monitoring.

Backed by these infrastructures, GreenGeeks is able to guarantee a high level of reliability. As we have personally tested its uptime with a blog site, it succeeds in achieving a 99.98% uptime.

Hosting Speed Comparison – HostGator Wins

With cutting-edge data center infrastructure and servers, both HostGator and GreenGeeks are able to offer super-blazing page loading speed that is faster than the majority of web hosts. Here, we have started a performance testing to further compare their hosting speed for over 6 months with Pingdom. As tested, HostGator consumes 338ms for server response that is up to 11% faster than GreenGeeks of 375ms on average.

Support Comparison – Both Win

According to customer feedbacks, almost all the webmasters are highly satisfied with the technical support offered by both HostGator and GreenGeeks. This is because the 2 companies offer responsive support service that is available 24/7 via phone, e-mail and live chat. Besides, the support staffs are required to be in this field for at least 3 years, being able to offer the best resolutions for customers efficiently.

Summary

According to this comparison, both HostGator and GreenGeeks are top-class green web hosting providers offering rich features, good uptime record, and unmatched support.

However, GreenGeeks is better than HostGator in terms of price and greenness. HostGator does the better job than GreenGeeks when considering the server response time.

I've been an experienced web developer, SEOer and technical writer since 2003. I worked in many international high-tech companies including Microsoft and Autodesk before 2012. Now I own a startup company in San Francisco, CA, focusing on developing websites and blogs to deliver exceptional results to global readers by leveraging the power of Internet.
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We get commission from web hosting companies for referral and advertisement. However, this does not affect our unbiased web hosting reviews and insights. We never allow payments to influence our judgement. We always work hard and try our best to help people find the best cost effective web hosting deals at an affordable rate.